These are not my words, they are attributed to a Dr. Jeff Schweitzer, but give a good and concise account of some of the main aspects of Mormonism :

Mitt Romney, And What You Should Know About Mormons

Most folks are unfamiliar with the real story of how Mormonism originated. Prior to having a Mormon run for president, such historic ignorance was benign enough. No more; voters really need to understand what they are getting when voting for Romney. We are reticent to discuss religion on the campaign trail, but the media is nearly criminally negligent in ignoring the story of Mormonism. Voters need to know the core belief system of the candidate, and what Mormons believe is anything but mainstream. You will think I am making up the stories below, because they are transparently the work of an uneducated peasant mind, but you can easily verify them for yourselves by going to the Mormon website itself, or better yet, read the Book of Mormon and the Mormon Book of Abraham and decide for yourself.

In the early 1800s, in Palmyra, New York, a local boy claimed he could divine the location of ground water, as well as treasures buried by Indians. Persuasive as a snake-oil salesman, farmers paid him $3, a princely sum then, to find buried riches on their land. The boy, Joseph, used “magic stones” to discover the sites of this bounty. When he inevitably failed to find either water or treasure, he would leave town, often with “encouragement,” and move on to other fee-based treasure-hunting activities in another town.

After a particularly large and humiliating failure in the Susquehanna Valley, near Damascus, New York, Smith stayed on to court a local gal, Emma Hale, in spite of community accusations that he was a “charlatan.” In the spring of 1826, a group of unhappy customers went further and brought formal charges against Joseph, claiming he was nothing but an imposter. He was subsequently convicted of “glass gazing,” an outlawed form of fortune telling. Emma’s dad, Isaac, was one of the duped treasure hunters who testified against Joseph, so he was not pleased by the courtship of his daughter by this convicted criminal. He considered Joseph to be arrogant, fraudulent and lazy. Those who knew Joseph best claimed, “He could utter the most palpable exaggeration or marvelous absurdity with the utmost apparent gravity.” Others said that Joseph was “in particular considered entirely destitute of moral character and addicted to vicious habits.” But Joseph was persuasive to some, and Emma eloped with him in January 1827. To reconcile with his estranged father-in-law, Joseph promised to lead a more honest and honorable life, and to help Isaac on his farm.

Instead of working in the field, however, Isaac found Joseph spending all his time indoors. When he finally investigated, he discovered his son-in-law muttering long phrases from the Bible, with Emma sitting behind a curtain writing down Joseph’s ramblings. Joseph explained that he had found two ancient golden plates by digging in a spot to which he had been led by an angel. He claimed the plates were written in “reformed Egyptian.” No such language exists. Fortunately, the two plates conveniently came with their own set of Rosetta stones, allowing him to translate the symbols to English, which explained his indoor activities. Joseph Smith was translating the ancient Book of Mormon. The “ancient” part might be in question, though, since the book agitated against such contemporary institutions as Freemasons, and even Catholicism. Sadly, the plates mysteriously disappeared before the dates could be authenticated. In fact, Joseph declared that instant death would be the result for anybody but him looking at the golden plates. Nobody but Joseph, the fraudulent diviner fromPalmyra, ever saw the plates. Only through the tainted word of a convicted con man do people know of the existence and content of those disappeared golden tablets. So terribly odd that such a monumental discovery would be hidden and destroyed rather than proudly shown to the world to prove that god’s word had been found at last.

Are the claims of Joseph Smith any less bizarre than those of Marshall Applewhite and Heaven’s Gate or David Koresh and the Branch Davidians? Without large numbers, Mormonism would be considered just another lunatic cult, with a foundation no less ridiculous or no different from Heaven’s Gate or the Branch Davidians. But why would you care? Here is why: because unlike Applewhite or Koresh, Mormons are trying to elect a man to lead our government who believes in a religious philosophy that is strongly anti-American. Apostle Orson Pratt, speaking officially for the Mormon Church, said: “The kingdom of God (by which he means the Mormon priesthood) is an order of government established by Divine authority …. All other governments are illegal and unauthorized…. Any people attempting to govern themselves by laws of their own making, and by officers of their own appointment, are in direct rebellion against the kingdom of God”. Romney as a devout Mormon believes that the United States government is illegitimate. I hope readers find that sufficiently frightening.

Another oddity comes up when looking at Romney supporters. Evangelical Christians by right should be supporting the candidate who is a devout and faithful Christian family man, that is, Barack Obama, rather than the follower of a thoroughly anti-Christian religion. Have no doubt that Mormonism perverts all fundamental Christian tenets (which of course are themselves strange); specifically for example Mormons are taught that Christ’s atonement has nothing to do with our sins. It would seem that being black is more disqualifying than being anti-Christian in the eyes of evangelicals. There is really no other convincing explanation for why an evangelical would support Romney.

Finally, voters really need to know the fundamental beliefs of the Mormons if Romney is to occupy the Oval Office. Even by the strange standards of religion these beliefs are breathtaking. And we are not talking just about sacred underwear, which the official Mormon website describes as “garments worn as an outward expression of inward commitment” with no further explanation. We gather though that wearing “the whole armor of God” offers the wearer protection from temptation as a physical reminder not to sin. But underwear are not nearly the biggest eye opener. Take the planet Kolob (sometimes references as a star) described in the Mormon Book of Abraham, another Joseph Smith publication. Kolob is the heavenly body closest to god’s throne, yet to be discovered by astronomers. This god living on or near this planet or star, conceived “billions of spirit children” who were sent to earth to take on mortal bodies and learn good from evil (I’m not making this up, really). First, the Mormon god on Kolob and one of his goddess wives came to earth in the form of Adam and Eve to start the human race. So in Mormonism, Adam is god himself, not a creation of god. According to Mormonism, Genesis is all wrong; in fact the entire Pentateuch is wrong. Once the human race began and the spirit children from Kolob occupied those mortal bodies, those who remained neutral in the fight between good and evil would be “cursed to be born with black skin.” Some Mormons believe that god created black people when Cain killed Abel, with God giving Cain black skin to punish him and all his children. Either way, being black is not a good attribute to Mormons. African Americans might want to pause before punching the lever for Romney.

So, anyway, God went home back to Kolob after starting the human race, but then a few thousand years later returned to earth to have sex with the Virgin Mary in order to provide Jesus with a physical body. With that physical body Jesus took three wives, Mary, Martha and Mary Magdalene, from whom Joseph Smith claims direct descent. After Jesus’s resurrection, he came to North America to preach to the Native Americans, who Mormons believe are Israelites. And then the story gets weird (compared to what you’ve just read, so you can imagine), leading ultimately to the gold plates eventually found by Joseph Smith.

Another oddity to consider: Mormons baptize the dead, even if the deceased would have objected to the process in life. But it is hard to get an argument from a corpse. This is something else one would think would turn off any evangelical Christian. But being black is worse, and apparently that is something Mormons and evangelicals can agree upon.

So next time you consider voting for Romney, think of Kolob, spirit children, black people as sinners, sacred underwear, Adam as god, Jesus’s three wives and their descendant Joseph Smith, and finally, the Mormon belief that the United States government is illegitimate. But hey, the choice is yours.

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rhocam ~ I guess there are several trillion cells in a man, and one in an amoeba, so to be generous, lets say that there were a billion. That is one every fifteen years. So in my lifetime I should have seen two evolutionary changes.

I read the Book of Mormon (I started a topic on it earlier this year) and it's much more crazier than all that. But, this guy is speaking to Christians (protestant and Catholic non-Mormons) and they already believe in a lot of crazy shit from their own Bible. I don't think itlll have much effect.

Also, how many here, as atheists, believe Obama is a Christian? I think he's an atheist pretending to be a Christian. Just like Lincoln.

I think Obama is a political Christian... he doesn't seem to "embrace" the Christian thing, it always seems like he's paying just enough lip service to it to appease.

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rhocam ~ I guess there are several trillion cells in a man, and one in an amoeba, so to be generous, lets say that there were a billion. That is one every fifteen years. So in my lifetime I should have seen two evolutionary changes.

He's most likely an aheist. His mother was and I think his father also. When he went to Chicago and worked in on the South Side he needed to fit in. You need to be part of the black church culture to do that. In politics you also have to play the game. I would imagine there are a lot of people playing the game inculding preachers.